I just read through the article again along with its comments and see that the votes have been adjusted. The chains with fewer locations have the totals adjusted up to match the chains with higher location counts on the assumption that more locations would mean more votes.

So if Five Guys got 10 votes and have only 3 locations in the area and there are 30 McDonalds in the same voting area, then Five Guys ends up with 100 votes (30 divided by 3 for location count adjustment multiplied by 10 votes).